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A new practice method helps you learn faster by — get this — avoiding the sweet spot. Here’s how.

1. The theory

Instead of trying to pound the sweet spot practice swing after practice swing at the range, try catching a few on the heel and toe as well. By giving your brain multiple reference points to think about, you force it to work harder — so you can learn faster! It’s called variable training. Multiple studies prove that it can be wildly effective.

2. How to put it to good use

Tee the ball in its regular spot and try hitting it off the toe. After a few attempts, switch it up: Hit some clankers off the heel. Then go back to your quest to locate the center. For a real test, tee two balls off the clubface and see if you can knock them in tandem. Now you’re really putting your noggin to work! If you can teach yourself to create off-center hits on command, it’ll be easier to find the center when it counts.

If you’re like a lot of the amateurs I’ve seen, you take too much sand on greenside bunker shots. People say you need to hit the sand first, but most golfers overdo it—and end up leaving the ball in the bunker.

I hit these shots differently. My philosophy is that you don’t need to chunk it out with a lot of sand. You can control a bunker shot better if you take less sand. You’ve probably done this by accident and hit a great shot that popped out with spin and checked up by the hole. The big chunk tends to roll out too much, so it’s hard to control.

To try my technique, there are a few things you need to do in your setup. Take a wider stance than usual, and dig in your feet a bit for stability, with your weight about 50/50. To find that balanced body position, close your eyes and shift your weight a little left and right until you feel neutral.

Play the ball just forward of center in your stance, and open the clubface by rotating it to the right. Then drop your hands back a touch, away from the target. When you move your hands back, the open face, which was pointed to the right, is square to the target again.

Go ahead and make a big arm swing, but maintain the angles in your wrists that you set at address. Make sure you turn your lower body, too. Your goal is to hold the clubface open during the backswing, so keep those wrist angles intact.

Coming down, don’t think about hitting two inches behind it—that’s too much sand and too unpredictable. Instead, focus on letting the bounce on the bottom of the club slide through the sand. You want the clubhead to bottom out directly under the ball, not behind it.

Finally, keep the swing going through the sand. A lot of people forget to follow through, and they just dump the ball in front of them. Swing to a nice, full finish. When you do it right, it doesn’t feel like the sand is grabbing your clubhead. It feels crisp and clean. Give it a try.—With Keely Levins